The Falcon and the Winter Soldier: Tumblr’s Trend Expert Breaks Down the Love for Sam and Bucky

We’re officially two episodes into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and the Disney+ exclusive series is already providing a unique window into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series, which follows the ongoing globe-trotting adventures of Sam Wilson/Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), has undeniably courted a lot of attention, with both new and returning fans breaking down each plot twist or unexpected Easter egg. Nowhere has that been apparent quite like on Tumblr, as the microblogging platform has always had an affinity for Sam and Bucky — but one that has already risen to new heights in the time surrounding the series premiere.

Just before the debut of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s second episode, we spoke with Cates Holderness, Tumblr’s newest Trend Expert, about the unique hype surrounding the new series. We broke down some of the most surprising stats regarding both Sam and Bucky, the various ways that Tumblr users are expressing their love for the series, and where that fanfare could go by the end of the season.

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ComicBook.com: One thing that really jumped out to me in the data that you provided was the increase in engagement (92%) of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier versus WandaVision. I find that really interesting, because it feels like it was almost the opposite on other social media sites like Twitter, where there was talk about WandaVision basically everywhere you went. I was curious about that aspect, and why you think The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was more popular out of the gate.

Cates Holderness: That, to me, was fascinating when I was pulling this data. I think it’s so interesting. I think part of it is [that] WandaVision was the first of the MCU shows to come out on Disney+, and I don’t think anyone knew what to expect. The Scarlet Witch and Vision are lesser-known characters — they don’t have as much of an institutional history [in the MCU] in the same way that somebody like Bucky Barnes does, going back to the first Captain America movie.

Interestingly, we saw a lot more searches for WandaVision in the first week that it was airing. Searches for WandaVision were 219% higher than searches for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier over the same period. To me, that really shows that people were already primed to churn out content for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. You’ve got your Bucky stans. You’ve got your people who just think Falcon is the best. And for WandaVision, I think it was much more of “We don’t know what to expect. These are lesser-known characters, and we’re not as emotionally entangled in their history.” But once it came out, I think people were like, “Oh, this is interesting. This is different. This is cool.” And also it’s a great story having a female-driven Marvel TV show. Throughout the course of WandaVision airing, we saw more engagements, we saw more growth, and it became more ubiquitous on the platform in the same way that now The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was when it immediately first premiered.

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When you say people were primed to churn out content for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, what kind of content were they creating right out of the gate? 

We’ve seen, of course, tons of fanart. It’s evergreen. There’s always going to be fanart. But what’s been really interesting to see are the gift edits and the giftsets that people have been making. It’s interesting to see them take this new content from the first episode and pair it alongside existing content from the films. One giftset, in particular, lays out the parallels of Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes reentering society, and adjusting and processing their trauma of “We were gone for so long, and now we’ve got this new world that we’re a part of and how do we deal with that?”

To me, people are using gifs and photo stills to really dive into the motivations of these characters and what their emotions are like, and to really add nuance in the way that fan fiction will often add nuance or long text posts that lay out “These are my thoughts, and these are my theories, and this must be their motivations.” It’s been really interesting, to me, to see people do that in giftset form as well.

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I was curious about the fanfic perspective, because that definitely is a thing that thrives on Tumblr. And especially with Sam and Bucky, and where they were left at the end of Endgame, it feels like there was a lot of opportunity to fill in the gaps with fan fiction.

In March, versus February, engagements for the Sam/Bucky ship tag were up 254%, which is wild. And we saw the Sam/Bucky ship jump up eleven slots on the Fandometrics ships list this past week. Interestingly, we also saw the Stucky ship, between Steve and Bucky, jump up 10 slots.

These characters have always had a very antagonistic relationship, to put it nicely. They always rebel [against] each other, and it’s been fun to see the fanfic and the edits that people are making of “I can’t wait to see them interact and I want to see how they go.” It’s very much — I don’t want to say enemies to lovers, but it’s antagonists to lovers. They’re united by their friendship with Steve, so there’s been a lot of fanfic that I’ve seen that goes over how they negotiate a relationship together when Steve’s not a part of it.

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What has surprised you the most with the data for The Falcon and the Winter Soldier so far? Obviously, we’re only just barely into the show, but the numbers for all of it are very impressive.

It’s super impressive. I think what I’m most pleasantly surprised by is how high engagements with the Sam Wilson tag have been this month, compared to February. They were up 589%, which is just astronomical to me. I’ve really loved seeing all of the content that’s come out around his character, specifically his relationship with his sister, who was introduced in the first episode. A lot of the posts that I’ve seen have been focusing on him, which is nice to see. Of course, everyone loves Bucky Barnes, but it’s nice to see Sam Wilson getting an equal amount of love and attention and engagements.

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Going forward into the rest of the season, how do you think the engagement surrounding The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is going to evolve? I feel like, even just from a character perspective, we’ll get the return of Sharon Carter and Zemo and all of these other characters who have existing followings as well. And just on a broader angle as well, as you said, Sam and Bucky’s dynamic is going to make Tumblr explode.

Yeah, definitely. I’ll be really curious to see how some of these newly-introduced characters do. I’ve already seen a bunch of posts around Torres, with lots of people being like “I’m adopting him. He’s my son. I love him. He’s my idiot son who goes and gets into trouble.” So I’ll be really curious to see how his character progresses and what kind of fandom builds around him.

It’ll be really fun. I have no idea where the show is going. I think it feels very movie-like in a way that WandaVision did not feel very movie-like, so I think people are going to engage with it in a different way. And I’ll be really curious to see what happens within the fandom.

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Watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.

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